Surviving Him - Jo Johnson - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Jo Johnson

GENRE: Contemporary Drama

RATING: 2.5 stars

In a Nutshell: A contemporary drama focussing on the emotional trauma of a young girl. Authentic in psychological portrayal, thanks to the author’s background. The rest however, is a mixed bag.

Story Synopsis:

Daisy Bowen-Jones is a teenager you would love to hate – a rude bully with several bad habits. She has been expelled from school, and her family – comprising her mom Estelle, grandma Dorothy, and uncle Ben – are concerned about her. But Daisy knows that she may not have a long life. Her genetics ensure that the disease her father had is definitely going to affect her too some day. Daisy’s family is behind her to get genetic screening done, but Daisy stays adamantly away. Things begin to change a little when Daisy is forced by her grandma to work in a care home, looking after dementia patients. But with several family secrets now tumbling out, Daisy is still a long way from recovery.

The story comes to us in the third person perspectives of Daisy, Dorothy, and Ben.

I had loved this author’s ‘Surviving Her’. She is a practising clinical psychologist, and puts her knowledge to good use in making her characters seem vulnerable and real. She also does not use the disease just for namesake, but actually shows the physiological and psychological effects of living with such life-threatening diseases. This tendency of hers is visible in the current book too. The rest however is not that impactful for me.

Bookish Yays:

🌹 The prologue is stunning. Love it when authors use prologues effectively.

🌹 Insights about Frontal Temporal Dementia (FTD) and how it works.

🌹 Daisy’s track – a teenager who doesn’t know how to handle her genetic lottery and ends up antagonising most people with her behaviour. She is an impossible character to like, but her vulnerability comes out well. Her perspective clearly reveals her cruel attitude towards others and even towards herself.

🌹 Some elements of living in a dysfunctional family are represented with a refreshing genuineness.

🌹 Daisy’s work at the home taking care of dementia patients – touching and realistic.

Bookish Nays:

🌵 Too much clutter. Daisy’s arc was good enough to tie the story together. Why have so many other subplots, most of which could have easily been scraped out? The blackmail arc was especially superfluous.

🌵 Too many characters to keep track of, especially at the start. Even worse is that most characters are likeable, so I barely felt anything towards them.

🌵 Too many secrets. Right from the start, we get to see how every character ha some secret or the other, but we don’t come to know what the secret is for a long, long time. The clandestine behaviour is annoying.

🌵 Too many and too frequent perspective changes. Daisy’s arc should have been the focal point of the book. With the narrative rotations among Daisy, Ben and Dorothy, the switchover in the points of view makes the character-filled story even trickier to get.

🌵 Too farfetched an ending. It is unrealistically smooth and satisfying, which doesn’t make sense for such a story.

🌵 Some plot gaps aren’t clarified even by the end.

All in all, an okay read if you are looking for a drama about a rebellious teen who cannot handle what’s in her destiny. The book could have been far better, but as is, it was just a okayish one-time read for me. I’d still recommend her earlier book, ‘Surviving Her’; that had blown me away.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through The Pigeonhole. This review is voluntary and contains an honest opinion about my reading experience.